


try to untie

by usingmyoxygen (keithsforeheadtattoo)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: inception_kink, Drug Use, Drugs, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithsforeheadtattoo/pseuds/usingmyoxygen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>yusuf has never been more glad regarding his own habit of accidentally holding at almost all times than he is tonight, blinking up at the stars, quite literally burning through the last of his newfound pocket stash with a man who is kind of his boss.</p><p>he shouldn't be surprised at all, really, that someone who squints all the time and pioneers in a business built on dreams isn't a stranger to cannabis, yusuf doesn't say but thinks pretty loudly.</p><p> </p><p>  <b>written for the i_k meme, for the prompt "They smoke up together, because Cobb *really* needs to relax."</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	try to untie

**Author's Note:**

> title's from (appropriately enough) "lit up" by the national  
>  
> 
> _My bodyguard shows her revolver to anyone who asks_  
>  And yeah, she comes to attention when you come up to me too fast  
> For a little while you'll be here, the only good part of me  
> For a little while you'll be here

when yusuf emerges from behind a jungle of papers concerning the mark's extensive and conflicting drug allergies, cobb is already face-down at his desk in a pile of his own closely crossed arms. sleeping, yusuf assumes at first, until he locates the source of the diligent rhythm that's been buzzing through his own subconscious for the better part of an hour: cobb is drumming the knuckles of one hand against the tabletop at a frantic pace, tendons blooming and submerging again under blue-veined skin.

"making any headway?" yusuf decides to throw out there, testing.

cobb lifts his head instantly. the drumming stops.

"i… was, yeah, uh. at first." he offers lamely by way of explanation. the beginnings of shadowy, deep half-circles have sprung up beneath his eyes since they last spoke a few days prior, yusuf notes.

"…have you slept, dom?" yusuf inquires after his single five-minute attempt at returning to work is interrupted at minute two by a barrage of louder, faster tapping.

"not since--" cobb checks his watch.

then his calendar.

"shit," yusuf hisses, laughing, awed, filled with a rapid sympathy. "and you're still just working?"

"mm. yeah. …with astounding efficiency, obviously."

there's a distinct sense of humor threaded somewhere through cobb's half-buried personality, yusuf has gathered. he's wondered, on multiple occasions, exactly what kind of machinery it would take to excavate it.

"well, i'm sure i won't be the first one to tell you to take a day off," he pontificates, theory reinforced by the untouched expression on cobb's face and the idle, nearly mandatory nature of the nod he throws in yusuf's direction.

"don't think it'd help," cobb mutters so low it might've been just to himself. he stands, and yusuf reads the same two lines of xeroxed research again and again absentmindedly, distracted by the other man's peripheral figure. cobb walks from one desk to the next, aimless, picking up and flipping almost manically through a research binder now and again.

"go home, dom," yusuf urges when midnight strikes and cobb has been thumbing through the same four pages on fischer for the past half-hour.

there's a vulnerability to cobb in this exhausted state, he notices -- notices, especially, now, as the word 'home' produces a very literal, all-over muscular tense in him; a laugh that's wordless but almost searingly bitter.

"i've gone home," dom starts -- gives the word extra emphasis -- "to an empty hotel room for more nights that i can even fuckin'…" he sputters, trailing off when his sentence steers wildly from passive aggressive to pitiful.

yusuf takes his time packing up his things; sorts out both his files and his intentions and turns to face cobb's now-seated form.

"which hotel?" he asks as he's grabbing his coat.

\- - -

yusuf makes the disappointed trek in the opposite direction of the hotel bar and up the steps. by the time they'd shown up, it'd been closed for two hours -- ridiculous operating hours for a friday, he thinks at first, and then says aloud to fill the silence once he and dom are in the suite with discomfortingly little conversation fodder.

they quickly wind up smoking cigarettes on the balcony despite the incapacitating cold. yusuf finds it easier to just listen, at first, but finds soon afterward that there are only so many monologues about sports teams he doesn't follow that he can bear in a single sitting.

"so how long have you been smoking?" he asks casually during the first available pause, the first in a line of beat-around-the-bush questioning that he ends with, "so… d'you only smoke cigarettes…?"

\- - -

yusuf has never been more glad regarding his own habit of accidentally holding at almost all times than he is tonight, blinking up at the stars, quite literally burning through the last of his newfound pocket stash with a man who is kind of his boss.

he shouldn't be surprised at all, really, that someone who squints all the time and pioneers in a business built on dreams isn't a stranger to cannabis, yusuf doesn't say but thinks pretty loudly.

"fischer's driving me crazy," says cobb, leaning over the balcony's railing -- clarifies, "fischer the job, not the person," and smiles for one of the first times yusuf has seen possibly ever.

"fischer the person's driving me crazy," yusuf deadpans in grave remembrance of the multi-paged allergy reports, and cobb laughs softly, a mix of fatigue and amusement briefly closing his eyes.

"yeah, he's a piece of work," dom concedes. he tries to keep going, to talk about fischer senior, about browning, about the case, about the dream and how they're still not ready they need to change so many things they need to fix so many errors they'll just never be ready; yusuf offers him the smoldering remainder of the joint they've been sharing as placation instead. there's a considerable amount left, and all of it of a pretty damned high quality -- yusuf orders, "all yours. and absolutely no business discussion 'til that's finished," in the knowledge that the two are incompatible goals.

"the last time i did this was with mal," dom says, voice gravelly and reverent, when he ashes the dregs of it into a potted plant minutes later. unlike every other mention of her name yusuf has witnessed, cobb is smiling when he says it this time.

"the kids were with their grandparents for the weekend…" he leans his head on one hand. "we ordered a pizza and… talked about… oliver sacks…"

there's still a sad film coating his voice, but, seemingly, no longer a hopeless one.

"i thought 'uncle tungsten' was excellent," yusuf ventures after a silence.

\- - -

cobb falls asleep halfway into a nature documentary that yusuf doesn't even remember starting. he sits through the remaining forty minutes of hunting footage of predatory marine birds, tuning out the dry narration and listening to the thrumming pattern of dom's breathing.

he stands to leave a few minutes after it's ended, not meaning to wake cobb but stirring him accidentally nonetheless: cobb's head had been resting on his shoulder the whole time, yusuf remembers suddenly and only after he's already standing. he'd gotten used to the pressure, the warmth.

"how long was i out?" dom asks, and when yusuf's response is a cloudy "i dunno" and a mild wave of laughter, asks, "you're not about to drive right now, are you?"

yusuf steadies himself. "i was thinking so," he says, then puzzles in retrospect over his own sentence structure. _thinking so_ , he thinks multiple times in a row, the phrase sounding less correct with each repetition.

"lemme call you a cab," cobb offers, but stops the reach for his phone at the noise of disapproval yusuf makes in response.

"my car's outside," he mumbles.

"your bag's right here," cobb says, and points.

yusuf goes to pack and collect it, taking this as a suggestion to leave.

"no," dom laughs, "i mean, stay here tonight," and meets yusuf's gaze with one that seems somehow realer than he's ever received from cobb before, glinting with the reflection of the bay window and the constellations peering inside through it.


End file.
